South African/Canadian commercial director Neill Blomkamp got a lot of attention when District 9, his feature-length debut, gave the science fiction genre a kick in the pants in 2009. He’s been hard at work on his next film, Elysium, since then, and few details have emerged in that time.
We already know Matt Damon and District 9 star Sharlto Copley have roles. Wagner Moura (Elite Squad) is set to play the villain. Jodie Foster, no stranger to science fiction (Contact), has also been reported to have been on board.
Now, in a throwaway comment at the end of an LA Times article about Mel Gibson‘s The Beaver, Foster’s role has been revealed. She will play a head of state on an alien planet.
You’re thinking, “That’s it? What kind of lame excuse for a revelation is this?”
Let’s review Blomkamp’s previous comments on Elysium, from an MTV.com interview and a Guardian article:
“It’s totally original, it’s my own story … It’s set on another planet, but it’s cool. It’s violent, very violent, and very unique hopefully. We’ll see… It is science fiction and it has many sociopolitical ideas that interest me. Those ideas are wrapped up inside something that is like a Hollywood action film.”
So you see, this is as big a reveal as any we’ve gotten so far.
Without knowing for sure whether Foster is playing a human or an alien, it’s hard to even speculate about her character’s place in the film’s narrative. If only it were possible to keep Elysium‘s plot totally under wraps until its 2013 release. We’ll probably know how it ends once its inevitably action-packed trailers hit the web.
Would you see Elysium knowing absolutely nothing about its plot?